


Lying in the Beds of Ghosts

by macabre



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Fairy Tales, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-07-03
Updated: 2009-07-03
Packaged: 2017-11-08 12:37:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/443260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/macabre/pseuds/macabre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam is Sleeping Beauty, but Dean is no Prince Charming.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lying in the Beds of Ghosts

Dean has run across sleeping spells before. In previous cases, either Dean saw the spell being worked by whoever or whatever, or it became very apparent that the sleep the victim was placed in was unhealthy. Dean sees neither violent telltale now.

Sam’s been sleeping on Bobby’s bed now for over a week. He looks completely peaceful – no thrashing or twitching, not so much as an eye movement. His body is limp when carried, his skin a little cold. There are signs of a normal sleep cycle, except at the end Sam doesn’t wake up. He just goes on sleeping, completely silent, completely motionless.

After the past year of sharing a bed with his brother, Dean knows Sam is anything but an easy sleeper. He jerks awake at the slightest movement from his brother’s form (Dean is thankfully a generally heavy sleeper), he likes to lie diagonally across the bed so that his legs are always on top of Dean’s, and he over shares the blankets. Dean would wake up in a sweat with every portion of the covers tossed on top of him, half the time Sam’s weight added on top of that.

And now he’s just lying there. It brings back the too recent memory of Sam’s spinal cord cut through in half, and his pale corpse rotting away on that mattress. Dean reminds himself that this was another place, another destination, but sleeping in beds all over the country, sleeping in the bed of their surrogate father, sleeping, always sleeping it feels like, and Dean wonders what curse has come upon them from trespassing in beds made for others.

They’ve been lying in the beds of ghosts for years.

Was there a bed made for a witch? Did Sam lie in the bed of the three bears? A red apple somewhere along the road in the last thousand miles?

Sam is Dean’s sleeping beauty, and for all the constant teasing Dean has given his brother over the years for his girly attributes, Dean is no prince charming. He’s tried. No kiss will rouse his brother from his sleep, and Bobby’s research hasn’t come up with any other solution either, but Dean keeps his constant place at Sam’s side, sitting in the chair, standing over him, lying next to him, on the covers, under the covers, as close as air and skin allow. Dean has nothing left without Sam, so he stays closer than possible and presses his lips against everything that is his brother.

Bobby hasn’t been able to help for what seems like the first time ever, and Dean can’t handle the pitying looks Bobby gives him anymore, so while Bobby is likewise asleep on his couch, the older Winchester maneuvers his brother out of the house and shotgun in the Impala, where he is always meant to be. Sam slumps over, sleeping on the cold glass, like so many nights ago. Those nights were too numerous and crowded for them both, blending and slurring together so Dean can pretend that Sam might wake up at daybreak when they stop for gas.

He doesn’t.

Dean pulls over to rest when he needs to. Not wanting to have to sleep in another foreign bed, he resists the lure of their old companions, motels and abandoned housing. This lasts only a short while, until even Dean cannot stand to spend another minute in his beloved baby, and the only places Dean can move his sleeping brother to are motel rooms. So Dean starts the traveling tour of motel rooms again, some revisits, others not. Sam keeps sleeping. Dean keeps waiting.

Bobby calls. Ellen calls. Even Jo calls. Dean doesn’t pick up. He keeps on the move. They’ll find him if they really want to and Dean stays still for too long. So Dean stays in constant motion while Sam is motionless right next to him. If Dean feels his life blurring at the edges, then Sam must be a ghost himself now, just an old haunt that Dean can’t let go of.

Dean wonders if there is something to be learned from every bed they lie in – was it a happy bed, a sad bed, a deathbed? Was there a couple in it before them? Did they know something Dean doesn’t? Is there a just right bed for Sam? A bed that won’t let him sleep, but wake him up?

Dean has no answers. He keeps on the move because he’s not ready to be found and lock Sam up behind a glass case or in a panic room. Surprisingly, the panic that ruled his life when Dean first couldn’t rouse Sam has slowed in to just his steady heartbeat. It’s constant, but there. He’s moving too fast, yet Dean feels as frozen as Sam.

Dean pulls over to the side of the road one night and lays Sam down in a natural bed, one made of dirt and grass and Dean’s chest. Will the natural bed revive Sam? Dean wakes up the next morning still alone, Sam’s body having slipped away from him, his eyes still shut and his body still peaceful.

Having no destination and only few places he can drag his sleeping brother through, Dean is running out of options and hope. Now when he lies next to Sam, he wishes to fall asleep forever too, both of them laid out and dying without their noticing. Dean wonders what Sam’s dreams are like now, more vivid, the only grasp of reality he has left? Does Sam dream of his brother, still with him, still touching him, always?

Because he can’t stay asleep long enough, Dean stops sleeping at all after awhile. He drives on and on in the Impala. He hasn’t heard his brother’s voice in nearly two months now, but he can imagine Sam’s nagging over the music and his concern over his lack of sleep and food. Dean lets Sam sleep for the both of them. His philosophy of eating for the both of them didn’t last a day because food tastes like ash now, but that’s okay, because Sam apparently doesn’t need to eat and Dean can live without anything. Except Sam.

One night they drive past a well-lit lake in moonlight, and Dean is sleep-deprived and starving, so when he momentarily sees himself holding Sam in his arms and sinking to the bottom of the dark water, it jolts him wide awake for the first time in a week. He speeds away, not looking back.

When Dean had first tried to wake Sam up, he had thought of water. Dean filled a whole bathtub with icy water and then dumped his little brother right in it. Sam didn’t stir a muscle; his head sank and hit the bottom of the tub, his long legs still dangling over the side. Dean stared and stared, waiting for Sam to cut it out, until Dean realized he was drowning his brother. He quickly pulled Sam from the shallow depth and checked to see that his brother was still breathing, which he was. Completely normal breathing, like he could breath under water all along.

Dean gets a room to wash up. He takes a bath, the coldest water possible, and lets himself sink. He keeps his eyes shut, the hollow yet full noises underwater trying to lull him to sleep, but it sounds too violent for that. He steps out of the water and wraps himself around Sam, hoping that Sam will keep breathing for him.

They’re back on the road again; Dean has the windows rolled down so that the wind makes Sam’s hair whip around. Here he looks animated, here his brother looks alive. Here Dean remembers Sam perfectly.

_”Fuck, when we find a room to stop finally, I’m going to sleep in for at least a year,” Sam laughs next to him, his clothes soiled but his smile bright._

_“You’re getting old, Sammy. Can’t even handle a simple case of banshee anymore.”_

_“Fuck off, you’ve been keeping me up the past week like you stole a bottle of Viagra when I wasn’t looking.” Sam is smiling. Sam is beautiful with the windows rolled down and the wind flying through his hair, sunlight streaming across his arm._

_“This is all natural, baby.”_

_Sam just smiles, his eyes showing just a small fraction of how tired he is._

_At the motel, Sam flops his entire weight down carelessly on the poor, unsuspecting bed. He’s already occupying the entire bed by himself._

_“Oh, fuck no, I knew I should have gotten two beds.”_

_“Be quiet and get over here,” Sam says, eyes closed but reaching blindly out with one hand for his brother._

_“What’s in it for me?”_

_“Ugh, tomorrow,” Sam groans. He flops around dramatically, a small smile still lingering. “I promise…tomorrow.”_

_Sam doesn’t move when he wraps his arms around him. Sam doesn’t move all night. In the morning, Sam doesn’t move when he starts screaming or when he dumps Sam in the bathtub._

Dean doesn’t need water to feel like he’s drowning. He knows the feeling perfectly, because he’s been drowning in Sam all his life, and now that he has none, Dean still can’t breath. Sam sleeps and Dean sinks.

Dean wraps the blanket tighter around both of them in the backseat. Sam’s head is on Dean’s shoulder, and in the strange light of twilight, Sam looks like he’s smiling.

“Good night, Sammy.” And Dean kisses him. “I’ll see you in the morning.”


End file.
